Dual boot SuSE10.2 & Vista is not possible
 

I have installed Vista on my hda disk. Disk was partitioned: NTFS for Wins and Reiserfs for Suse. First I clean install Vista then SuSE10.2. When I reboot there is only SuSE in my GRUB BootLoader. Why and can I repair it. I tried that yesterday, but I lost everything and I have to install both systems again today. The result is the same.
Any Idea???:cry:

Im now downloading the goldmaster image, so don't know yet if it is possible or not.

What version of vista are you using? beta? Enterprise/business version?

I've got a Vista enterprise 64bit ready for some grub action. 30 mins and I can start testing opensuse 10.2 final .
If this really is the case, this is IMO atleast a critical bug, which should be posted on novells bugzilla

I have Home Premium now, but it was the same with Business version. My version is 64bit too and SuSe is RC1 64bit.

i have install 4 os in same hard disk without problem. winxp, win vista, sled 10, and ubuntu. However I using ide hard disk. Are you using sata?

I do not know what is the problem. No problem with winXP. But Vista and SuSE10.2 is not working. When I install SuSE, there is only SuSE in my bootloader. Cant login into Windows. I was trying Super GRUB disc but it can do nothing.

and this is my fstab:

/dev/hda6 / reiserfs acl,user_xattr 1 1
/dev/hda7 /home reiserfs acl,user_xattr 1 2
/dev/hda1 /windows/C ntfs ro,users,gid=users,umask=0002,nls=utf8 0 0
/dev/hdb1 /windows/D vfat users,gid=users,umask=0002,utf8=true 0 0
/dev/hda5 swap swap defaults 0 0
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
sysfs /sys sysfs noauto 0 0
debugfs /sys/kernel/debug debugfs noauto 0 0
usbfs /proc/bus/usb usbfs noauto 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts mode=0620,gid=5 0 0
/dev/fd0 /media/floppy auto noauto,user,sync 0 0

hmmm Home premium isn't even released yet.

Ok, but there were some grub issues with late beta and the RCs , so maybe they are solved with the GM.

Well On my DVD there are four or five versions. Basic, business, Premium, Ultra. When I start Vista, I get on login window Vista Premium release. The interesting thing is that after installing SuSE Windows are gon in Grub bootloader. In Home/Root I can see windows, I can read/write on my FAT32 disc, but I cant boot.

You may need to edit /boot/grub/menu.lst and add an entry for windows. Something like:

title Vista
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1

They must have some good conections over there, I have cable and Suse 10.2 GM is coming down at over 900kb for me. Gonna take like 30 minutes............................sweet

On a side note, I started installing the 10.2 GM, and it said I had to install in text mode, because I have less than 96MB RAM. I have 512MB RAM. What gives?

I have SLED 10 and Vista dual booted just fine.

What is the error your are getting on the Windows side?

Winload.exe? This isn't an issue with SuSE IMO it has to do with Vista's new boot sequence (which uses BDC instead of boot.ini) BCD uses winload.exe.. A few things I noticed when playing with Vista..

For some reason during the intsallation it put system files on D and not C (D was the bigger partition obviously).. I had the winload.exe error.. I had to fix it using bcdedit.exe

So what errors are you getting nad maybe I can help.. also have you tried http://www.vistabootpro.org/ if you don't have experience with BCDEdit?

Hi bigrigdriver,

thanks for your advice. It worked. I just copied your lines into my menu.lst, rebooted and here we go. Thanks again.

Suse 10.3 and Microsoft Vista dualboots just fine
 

Folks, I have only one SATA hard disk in my computer. I also had problems dualbooting Vista and Suse 10.2. I went though hundreds of posts reading how differently Vista handles the boot up sequence and basically gave up on it.

However, as soon as Suse 10.3 was released I decided to risk it and added it to my existing one disk Vista system:

1/ Had my Vista on my first and only HDD installed
2/ Shrank the 350MB only Vista partition using the Microsoft built in disk manager to gain extra 20GB of space for Suse Linux. I left the newly created space unpartitioned.
3/ Booted from the Suse installation disk (64bit DVD 10.3 GM)
4/ Modified the partition scenario offered by Suse installer to get two extra partitions, one for Swap 1Gb and the rest for Linux 19GB. However, you may want to keep the offered scenario where Suse offers you to create an extra partition for your documents at /home.
5/ I have chosen Grub as the boot loader and left all settings implicit.

All worked fine I can now boot either to Vista or to Linux. From Linux I can read the Vista partition files. I also read that In Linux you can even write into the Vista NTFS, but decided rather not to mess with it.

I hope this helps.

DualBoot Suse Linux with Windows Vista
 

To Dual Boot it is best to install Suse Linux first, Like if installing Windows, install Suse Linux than Windows. Suse Linux will detect Windows operating system and add it. Windows Vista also has a build in Boot Loader.

I don't know if I quite understand this, but if you install SuSE first before installing Windows, how can SuSE detect a Windows installation and then add it to the bootloader?

I agree with Youngjan's excellent instructions. The preferrred method is to install M$ first since this installation will overwrite the MBR of the hard drive. Install openSUSE second and allow GRUB to detect the OS's on the partitions and configure the bootloader.

If you install openSUSE first, GRUB will only detect and configure this single OS. When you install M$ second, it will overwrite the MBR and you will not be able to boot into your Linux partition. BUT, in this case you should be able to use your installation CD/DVD to repair GRUB. There is a known bug in 10.3 that causes the Repair option to fail, but supposedly the 10.2 install media will repair GRUB in both 10.2 and 10.3 (I am merely passing on secondhand info, I have not tried to use a 10.2 media on a 10.3 install and this this might not be correct). On another forum I came across another way to repair GRUB:

http://supergrub.forjamari.linex.org/?section=download

Hth.

-docarockus

Vista first, Linux second
 

If you go through numerous posts regarding this; it strictly discourages users from installing Vista after linux since Vista will not bother to add Linux to it's boot menu and will only overwrite Grub. Install VISTA first and LINUX second.

But if you still need to do it the other way around, you may want to check the following article: http://apcmag.com/5459/dualboot_ubuntu_and_windows_xp

why wasting time with dual-boot systems since we have the year 2007 and excellent virtual environments?

I have a full stand-alone opensuse 10.3 system with virtualbox installed, running, winxp, win vista and all the other windows you can't see anything through*g

it's quite nice not having a "data" partition anymore, fat formatted or something like that, you can work without all the time booting... uptime 370 days... really cool...

Dual Boot Suse Linux and Windows Vista
 

I have just dual booted Suse Linux 10.3 and Windows Vista on my Laptop and the only thing that I have trouble configuring is the Wireless network card. The Laptop has a built in wireless card and I have a external Dlink express card.

Wireless card under Linux
 

You may want to try the Ndiswrapper. It is not easy to make it work, but after days and days I managed to make my wireless card in my notebook work under Linux. There may be different threads for this though.

I am having a problem booting opensuse 10.3 and Vista home premium.

I installed suse after vista and I am unable to boot vista. I tried to play with grub but so far nothing has really worked.

Here is my grub menu.lst

------------------------------
# Modified by YaST2. Last modification on Fri Dec 28 20:42:30 PST 2007
default 0
timeout 8
gfxmenu (hd0,6)/boot/message

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: linux###
title openSUSE 10.3
root (hd0,6)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.22.13-0.3-default root=/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_TO
SHIBA_MK2546G_Y7FCT17WT-part7 resume=/dev/sda8 splash=silent showopts
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.22.13-0.3-default

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: failsafe###
title Failsafe -- openSUSE 10.3
root (hd0,6)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.22.13-0.3-default root=/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_TO
SHIBA_MK2546G_Y7FCT17WT-part7 showopts ide=nodma apm=off acpi=off noresume edd=o
ff 3
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.22.13-0.3-default

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: Kernel-2.6.22.13
-0.3-default###
title Kernel-2.6.22.13-0.3-default
root (hd0,6)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.22.13-0.3-default root=/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_TO
SHIBA_MK2546G_Y7FCT17WT-part7 resume=/dev/sda8 splash=silent showopts
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.22.13-0.3-default

title Windows Vista
rootnoverify (hd0,6)
chainloader (hd0,2)+1

title Windows 2
rootnoverify (hd0,2)
makeactive
chainloader (hd0,2)+1

title Windows 3
rootnoverify (hd0,6)
makeactive
chainloader(hd0,2)+1

title Windows 4
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader (hd0,2)+1

title Windows 5
rootnoverify (hd0,6)
makeactive
chainloader +1


-----------------------------------

and here is my fstab

/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_TOSHIBA_MK2546G_Y7FCT17WT-part7 / r
eiserfs acl,user_xattr 1 1
/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_TOSHIBA_MK2546G_Y7FCT17WT-part9 /home r
eiserfs acl,user_xattr 1 2
/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_TOSHIBA_MK2546G_Y7FCT17WT-part8 swap s
wap defaults 0 0
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
sysfs /sys sysfs noauto 0 0
debugfs /sys/kernel/debug debugfs noauto 0 0
usbfs /proc/bus/usb usbfs noauto 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts mode=0620,gid=5 0 0
/dev/fd0 /media/floppy auto noauto,user,sync 0 0
/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_TOSHIBA_MK2546G_Y7FCT17WT-part6 /data v
fat user,users,gid=users,umask=0002,utf8=true 0 0
/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_TOSHIBA_MK2546G_Y7FCT17WT-part3 /windows n
tfs-3g user,users,gid=users,fmask=133,dmask=022,locale=en_US.UTF-8 0 0

--------------------


Whenever I try the windows selection from grub I either get an invalid device or the computer reboots.

Any suggestions!!??

Thanks.